


Need

by Fledhyris



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Open Relationships, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 02:08:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20056306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fledhyris/pseuds/Fledhyris
Summary: Rodney needs a loving confidant; John just needs to be needed. When Rodney's second date with the expedition botanist Katie Brown goes south, he comes to John for some much needed comfort.Originally written in 2007 but posted (with the serial numbers filed off) to Gay Flash Fiction, an online zine for original fiction. Now returning to its rightful place in fandom, all names restored.





	Need

He heard a peremptory, insistent knocking on the door which could only be Rodney, and went to open it with a crooked smile that was both knowing and expectant.

Rodney, however, didn’t look in an anticipatory mood. He barrelled into John’s quarters, hands flicking nervously, his mouth turned down in an unhappy scowl. He stomped over to the bed and plumped himself down on the edge, running his fingers through his hair then spreading his arms wide, finally dropping his bunched fists to his knees with a sigh of frustration.

“I take it your date didn’t go so well,” John said with a wry, sympathetic smile, and he gestured the door closed before moving in front of Rodney. He dropped to his knees in a graceful, fluid motion of agility and ease of practice, placing his hands on Rodney’s thighs as he looked up into the distraught face.

Rodney rolled his eyes and made a scoffing sound, gesticulating before his hands clamped back, nervously, onto his legs.

“Your powers of observation astound me as always, Colonel,” he snapped, but he couldn’t quite meet John’s steady, understanding gaze. “I really don’t know why I expected anything else; honestly, it was a futile attempt from the outset. I should have known Cadman ballsed it up on that first date. I just… well, she seemed to know what she was doing, and you’d think, wouldn’t you, that a woman of all people would know what another woman wanted…”

John listened as Rodney rattled on about his abortive second date with the pretty botanist Katie, describing the entire humiliating experience in detail. Nothing of his innermost feelings were spared as he spilled all his hopes, anxieties and let-downs to the one person he could talk to so intimately, the one man whom he trusted enough to open his heart. Rodney was a private, passionate man, persecuted by demons both of society and his own making, and far too egotistical to risk cynosure by other, less intelligent mortals for mere emotional foibles. 

But even the closest of individuals needed some outlet, some confidant, and Rodney was naturally talkative; his voluble tirades to his colleagues served, in part, to take the place of feelings he dared not express. But he had found in John Sheppard a ready and sympathetic listener, one who was slow to judge and quick to offer advice if needed, though recognising that largely he was wanted only as an attentive receiver of whatever Rodney wished to impart. Rodney respected his intelligence and reserve, and found him sufficiently ‘cool’ without being awed or irritated, that he was willing to bare his soul to John when no other person could scratch the surface of his daunting mental barricades. It was something that he, Rodney, badly needed, and for reasons of his own, John was more than happy to grant him this small favour.

He knelt here now, looking steadily and attentively into Rodney’s face, moving his hands in long, calming strokes up and down his thighs, gently massaging and caressing tense muscles. Rodney continued to talk and gesticulate as though a dam had been breached, his own gaze roaming the room at a point just above John’s head, seeming not to register the man’s presence, though the bulge in his pants showed that physically, he was very alert to Sheppard’s attentions.

Suddenly he dropped his eyes to John’s, riveting him with a wide blue stare of hungry impatience. His outpourings halted mid-flow, overtaken of a sudden by other, more urgent needs.

“Are you just going to sit there all night stroking my legs, then, or are you going to do what I came here for?” he asked, as though Sheppard had been the one procrastinating.

John just grinned, and reached for the fly of Rodney’s pants, and drew out his erection in one smooth gesture, bending his head with undisguised relish. Rodney made a soft, strange little noise and sat very still, his hands clenched again on his knees, as John took his cock deep into his throat and started to suck.

“Oh, yeah, that’s… Oh, yeah, John, that’s good…” His voice changed entirely, small and soft with tentative wonder, all the peevish arrogance and frustration gone as though dissolved as Sheppard’s given name left his lips reverently, in the only instance of its use he ever allowed himself.

His hands wandered to John’s head, stroking, fingers twining in his hair and holding him gently in place as he worked, and John smiled around his mouthful and put all his efforts into making this as good for Rodney as his considerable expertise would make it. Finally, with a shuddering intake of breath, the man stiffened and came, a rush of salty heat down John’s throat like the tears which spilled suddenly down Rodney’s cheeks, and John rose and took his lover in his arms, cradling him on the bed as he sobbed.

“It’s all right, Rodney,” he soothed, kissing away the tears. “You’ve got me. I’ll look after you, always. Just come to me, I’ll take care of everything.” And Rodney clung to him and trembled and his sobbing gradually abated, and John stroked damp hair back from his brow, and smiled to himself, because above and beyond everything, he was needed. Not for his skills or his looks or the reputation attached to his title, but purely for who he was, himself.

Rodney needed a loving confidant; John needed to be needed. They had found each other, and together assuaged each other’s needs throughout the long Atlantis nights, no longer alone.


End file.
